After Jessica’s birthday party, I met up with Dallas and some friends at their lake house. Spending Memorial Day weekend at a lake house sounds awesome, but the weather needs to cooperate more than it did this weekend. It was too cold to spend a lot of time outside, let alone in the lake! Highlights of the weekend were watching Simon ram into things with his cone and when Brian cracked open his Dark Lord beer.

This is the third time we’ve gone to Todd’s house for New Years Eve (NYE 2009, NYE 2011). On NYE 2010, we hung out with this group of friends too, but at Frasca, not at Todd’s house. The last few years our habit has been to go to Jen and Chad’s New Years Eve party early, then head out with these other guys late, but this year, for the first time in about a decade, Jen and Chad didn’t have a New Years Eve party! They extended their Christmas visit in California to go through the new year. It all worked out fine, though. We just headed to Todd’s earlier than usual.

Kelly and her famous jello shots.

Simon and Bernie begging for treats!

Pictionary!

Pictionary!

Marty

Todd drawing.

Mike, Marty

Dallas stealing the mic from Katie

Songbirds

Dallas made his famous Korean short ribs and I made my Irish Car Bomb cupcakes. Kelly had a ton of snacks, some punch and jello shots, and a ton of people brought wine and beer and champagne, so we were all set. So set up. So much delicious food and drinks! I got the new Wii U last week (more on that later) and we brought that over. Sing Party, a karaoke-ish game, was a big hit of the night. We also played a rousing game of Pictionary. We also played a little Left-Right-Center. I lost $6. Boohoo.

Kelly and Todd trying to get a midnight family photo with Simon.

It didn’t work!

Mike and Larry

Kelly and Marty

Kissyfaces.

Liz and Maria

Rachelle and Josh

I don’t really know what happened after midnight. It’s a blur. We ended up sleeping in Todd’s spare bedroom so we wouldn’t have to drive home or try to get a cab. I went upstairs at about 3:30 am and was getting chastised for it!! I’m not sure how late the few party stragglers were up!